Cortés-Sánchez, MiguelMorales-Muñiz, ArturoJiménez-Espejo, FranciscoÉvora, MarinaDolores Simón-Vallejo, MaríaGarcia-Alíx, AntonioMartínez Aguirre, AránzazuAntonio Riquelme-Cantal, JoséOdriozola, Carlos P.Parrilla Giráldez, RubénÁlvarez-Lao, Diego J.2019-11-202019-11-202017-091866-9557http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/13020Fossil gathering by humans has been rarely documented in the Iberian Peninsula. In the present paper, a multidisciplinary approach has been taken to analyze a straight-tusked elephant (Elephas antiquus) molar retrieved in a Magdalenian deposit at the rock shelter of El Pirulejo in southern Spain. The taphonomical analyses revealed a multifarious use of a tooth that had not only been worked into an anvil-sort-of-tool but also used as a core and partly tainted with a composite pigment. The dating and geochemical analyses further evidenced that the molar derived from an animal that had lived in a rather arid landscape with a temperature range between 12.3 and 14.3 A degrees C coincident with a cold episode within marine isotope stage (MIS) 6.6 and probably fed on herbaceous plants. These analyses evidence the potential fossils from archaeological sites bear for addressing a wide range of issues that include both the cultural and paleoenvironmental realms.engOxygen isotopesBone phosphateMiddle PleistoceneIberian PeninsulaCave IsraelCollagenEuropePreservationCarbonateApatiteToothTaphonomyU/Th datingIsotopesUpper PaleolithicFossil gatheringjournal articlehttps://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-016-0324-1